


Sick of Losing Soulmates

by Arya_Greenleaf



Series: Twitter Fic [4]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, Past Abuse, Rey Solo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-07-03 13:19:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15819678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arya_Greenleaf/pseuds/Arya_Greenleaf
Summary: Armitage buries his father, buries his feelings. Ben helps.





	Sick of Losing Soulmates

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published on twitter.
> 
> Title from Dodie | Sick of Losing Soulmates

Ben Solo was a strange being. He was broken and bent and twisted and wrong. Armitage liked to imagine that he'd given his school counselor a run for their money. He was a patchwork of pain and misspent youth glued into the haphazard shape of a man.

Armitage Hux didn't know where he'd be if Ben hadn't found him. He'd been sitting alone in the dark, figuratively and nearly literally, in a booth at the back of a pub. He'd buried his father that day. He'd thought he'd buried all that went with him as well.

He'd been wrong and he'd been drunk when Ben came swirling in with a gust of wind and rain that threatened to turn into snow. The whole day had been wet, the ground of the cemetery squelching under Armitage's boots with every labored step.

Ben looked around with his weather-burned cheeks and finding no free table whipped his sodden hat off his head and grinned in Armitage's direction.

"Seat taken?" Armitage shook his head and gestured across the sticky table to the open seat.

Ben had been a stranger and Armitage had spilled his drink--and his guts--and his secrets. He'd felt like a teenager nursing his first bad buzz while Ben squatted beside him in the loo and made sure he didn't pass out directly into the toilet--vulnerable and embarrassed.

Months gone by saw Ben back in London and back in Armitage's flat.

Months of video calls and text messages and internet memes. Months of putting on a brave face and hiding the worst of it and keeping to his plans and his days and...

Hanging on.

He couldn't let Ben see it, couldn't let Ben know how broken he was. It should have been a relief to know that Brendol was gone and Maratelle was out of his hair and his life and all of the papers had finally been processed and signed.

Ben's crooked smile was too bright when Armitage opened the door, the sun cutting through the foggy haze of the day and hurtling right onto his threshold. He'd been ready to tell Ben to go, to find a hotel, to forget him altogether.

Ben babbled and brightened, slipping past Armitage and knocking him with his luggage as he pushed into the narrow entry hall.

Armitage smiled, teeth clenched, and broke just a little bit more.

He was sick of losing and bending and falling apart.

Armitage closed the door and put out a hand, catching Ben's shoulder before he made it into the lounge. Ben looked at him, confused. Clarity dawned on his wide-open face and he dropped his bags and pulled Armitage to his chest.

It was nearly sun-up when they'd run out of things to say. "You're as fucked up as me," Armitage rasped, his throat sore from it all. From the effort of keeping things in and letting them out.

Ben laughed and studied him from the other end of the couch. "So where do we start?"

It was a touch and a kiss and a night wrapped in a blanket on the floor in front of the dying warmth of the ash in the grate. Neither of them would be alone again.

Until it was time for Ben to fly home, his sister in tow, fresh from her first year.

Armitage waved them off at their gate, resigned. Rey's hair bounced as she bounded across the floor to be checked in, a compact ray of light and energy beside Ben's lurching shape.

They'd grow old as friends, that much was clear. Armitage had reconciled with the image of himself, greying at the temples and solitary, faded cat curled on his knee. Ben wouldn't be back until the same time next year, ushering his sister home once again.

The time would wear their wavering connection thin, of that much he's sure.

Armitage was chucking his phone away on the bedside table and sliding under his threadbare quilt when the call came. He choked for a moment, the bedding full of Ben.

He stumbled out of bed, taking the phone across the hall. He shut himself up in the bathroom, the cat's mewling echoing against the old wooden door. "Hello?" He croaked and waited.

Ben hesitated on the other end of the line, the other side of the world.

"I'm sick of losing people--I won't walk away anymore."

Armitage froze, breath caught in his chest.

"You're pretty fucked up, you know."

He scoffed.

"But your kind of fucked fits pretty well with my kind of fucked. I think. I hope." Armitage stayed silent. "So how do we do this?"

They were quiet, each listening to the other breathe. "Say something, you big idiot," Rey teased from somewhere on Ben's side. Another unfamiliar voice called her name, the soft scolding of a woman Armitage could only make assumptions about.

He started to respond, halting and stuttering and the damn cat getting louder and interrupting his thoughts.

"I won't take no for an answer," Ben murmured quietly.

It tugged at Armitage's chest, luring him in, a deep sea fish from an ocean away. "Neither will I."

Rey whooped in delight, a sharp echo in the background.

"Alright then," Ben said, more confident. "I'll let you get to... to sleep. It's night there."

"It is."

"Then I'll text you in the morning."

Armitage smiled to himself, the cat worming a paw under the door.

**Author's Note:**

> I am only capable of two things. Angst is one of them.
> 
> Comments as so very appreciated.
> 
> [Find me on tumblr @ avaahren](http://avaahren.tumblr.com/post/177464301889/sick-of-losing-soulmates-aryagreenleaf)


End file.
